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It pulsed continuously without stopping. Then it repeated, as it had done many times before. Then, without delay, almost without skipping a beat, it changed direction. The action was as old as man himself, yet this time, completely and uniquely different — the perfect heartbeat. The perfect mosquito heartbeat. An interesting quirk of nature is [...]... Read more »

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When Professor Plum killed Dr Black, in the library, with the candlestick it was for no other reason than murder is a disease. Murder is infectious and the contagion of violence is everywhere. Violence begets violence.Violence within nations and cultures. It occurs within families and between partners. It increases the risk of violence directed at [...]... Read more »

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Sometime during that glorious decade known as the 1980s, a shipment landed in Houston, Texas. A shipment carrying more than its cargo. The point of origin was Japan. The shipment was used tires. The payload was Asian tiger mosquitoes. Within years of landing in Texas the tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus, rapidly displaced resident populations of Aedes aegypti mosquito. [...]... Read more »

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Seven miles above the Earth’s surface, where the weather is born, lies the troposphere – the lowest layer of Earth’s atmosphere. Up there, where the clouds dance around, are bacteria that can make it rain, and are important for the formation of clouds. The atmospheric microbiome is a concept and field of study that is [...]... Read more »

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As with many parasites, the nuisance they bring is partly compensated for by new insights they provoke. The African trypanosome is perhaps unique among all of the diseases of developing worlds. The diseases of sleeping sickness, inflicted on man and cattle alike, perhaps drove early man ‘out of Africa’ — in an attempt to avoid [...]... Read more »

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Why does Morphine cause pain? He was diagnosed with testicular cancer at the age of 27. At the age of 39 he was in so much pain he begged his doctors to die. He was in pain because of morphine. In the 12 years he lived since he was diagnosed he had a therapeutic regimen [...]... Read more »

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Before hurricane Sandy touched down on the east coast of America, it passed through the Caribbean, causing around 80 fatalities — 60 of them occurred in Haiti, 11 in Cuba, two in the Bahamas, two in the Dominican Republic and one in Jamaica. Hurricane Sandy started life out over central America, nonchalantly, as a collection [...]... Read more »

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It boasts, struts, and flaunts with that kind of assurance that only comes from the mentality of knowing that you are right, and that even if you may be wrong, others will admire you for it. This is Paris. Where other cities flowed and spilled out to occupy a space larger than its originality, Paris [...]... Read more »

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It began… where it always begins — out there — in the vastness of space. What would it look like, that void of empty nothingness? So early on in the sound of creation, indescribable things all around. Not yet planets, not yet moons. Not yet defined. A titanic mass of rock. Different. Ugly and melancholic. [...]... Read more »

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How long until we live forever? The general consensus is that we are getting older and living longer. Despite consequences and kryptonite, it is getting easier to stay alive. Heaven can wait, it seems. Every year each baby born is expected to live 3 months longer than its predecessor of the previous year. This has been the [...]... Read more »

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What if you could wipe the memories of drugs from your mind? What if the sweet taste of relapse was no longer a fear for recovering drug users? Wiping drug memories Relapse back into drug use is complex. Taking into account the environmental cues that come along with using drugs. The effect of the drug [...]... Read more »

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The Karamoja region in northern Uganda is one of pastoral communities and closely dispersed ethnic groups that rely on livestock for their livelihood. It is within a semi-arid place like this that economies based on meat, milk, and blood from cattle thrive. In communities such as this one, cattle plague will always be the number [...]... Read more »

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The month of August indeed belonged to the tiny rover that could — Curiosity. We were all hooked right from the landing and until those first images of the red planet were beamed back. Not even Will.i.am could spoil it for us. We revelled in everything in between, from the missed high-fives, peanuts, Neil deGrasse [...]... Read more »

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It happened over ten years ago. Jimmy was incarcerated against his will, held in a cage, isolated, and denied the basic freedom he deserved. A Habeas Corpus request was put in on his behalf. A long ordeal involving lawyers and various international organisations. It happened again last year, in San Diego USA, Tilikum, Katina, Kasatka, [...]... Read more »

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“…the last big outbreak I experienced in Uganda [was] in 2007. When MSF arrived a lot of the staff in the hospital had died and the rest had run away because they were scared.” – Dr Kamalini Lokuge, who is about to head off to Uganda with MSF to fight the latest outbreak. At the end of [...]... Read more »

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The Amazon rainforest contains a wider variety of plant and animal life than any other biome in the world. The region in its entirety is home to roughly 2.5 million insect species, tens of thousands of plants, and some 2000 birds and mammals. To date, at least 40,000 plant species, 2000 fishes, 1000 birds, 427 [...]... Read more »

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Over 2 million years ago, before the emergence of the genus Homo, within the rift valleys and savannah grasslands of Africa during the Pliocene period, a unique event took place. One that, with some hyperbole, admittedly, shaped the course of human evolution. The event was on a molecular scale but had its bearings on what we now call [...]... Read more »

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“You have been assigned to the condition to smoke an active marijuana cigarette that contains THC. THC is the primary psychoactive cannabinoid that gets people high.” Does the fact that you are told you are taking a drug effect your reaction to that drug… or the drug’s effect itself? This was the simple question posed [...]... Read more »

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It’s a trap! In the fields of Brunei Darussalam in North Borneo, once a crown colony of Great Britain, lies the pitcher plant. The pitcher plant is carnivorous, capturing and devouring insects that seek to harvest its nectar. The pitcher plant is beguiling, attractive, and has evolved many ways to seduce its predator. Insect prey [...]... Read more »

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The ultimate reductio ad absurdum argument is that any behaviour can become potentially addictive. Which leads to the next logical question: are there any good addictions? Researchers today talk of addiction as a disease. And in that trope, the “disease concept” of addiction is really just a metaphor. A metaphor with connotations. Researchers posit that [...]... Read more »

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